That Was The World Cup

Regular readers of this blog will know that my usual hangout on Commercial Drive is Fet’s Bar & Grill run by the fabulous Alura & Eric and, these days, their sons.  Great place generally — best burgers and ultra-thin pizzas in Vancouver — and when a big soccer or hockey event takes place it is the place to be on the Drive.

For the World Cup Final yesterday morning and afternoon Eric put on a great show with extra TVs set up and I was able to arrange the best seats in the house for seven friends, all but one of whom were new to the place.  The restaurant was packed, of course, with a good mix of Spanish and Dutch supporters. The inevitable vuvuzelas were prominent — including on our table –, but the cheering and the chanting were even louder!  And the booze that flowed!  Boy, I had forgotten just how much my friends could drink!  When Spain finally scored the goal in the final minute of extra time, the whole place exploded. I shrieked and shouted along with the best of them and almost lost my voice as a result.

The Drive simply closed down as everyone poured out onto the street, conga lines forming!

Near the end of the game, Eric at Fets arranged a free raffle draw for team shirts and my good friend Bob won the Spanish colours.  Bob already has a vast collection of sports memorabilia and I thought it appropriate that he should win.  However, in the grand spirit of the day he immediately gave the shirt to a young girl at a neighbouring table of Spanish supporters as she was the only one in her group who wasn’t already wearing the uniform.  Great gesture from a really great guy to top off a wonderful day.

Not All Sports Are Created Equal

I admit it, I am a TV jock.  I like to watch sports on TV.  I’ll watch almost any kind of sport instead of a blank screen.  You might think that one team sport is essentially much like any other team sport, but that isn’t so.  Watching such a variety of sports has allowed me to isolate a large number of differences between team sports in North America and team sports in the rest of the world.  And, so we are clear, I am talking here about major team sports — soccer, American/Canadian football, cricket, rugby, baseball, ice hockey, basketball.

1.  Sports as Business Risk

Virtually all team sports outside North America are played in a series of hierarchical leagues where a team’s position in the series of leagues is dependent solely on their success or failure in the previous season.  To use British soccer as the exemplar, there is the Premier League at the top of the heap.  Below that is the Championship League, followed by League Division 1, League Division 2 etc.  If you finish in the bottom three of the Premier League in one season, the following season you will be relegated to the Championship League.  Your position in the Premier League is taken by one of the teams that finished in the top three of the Championship League in the previous season and were therefore promoted.  Three or four bad years in a row and you can quickly find yourself several levels below the top flight. This system, or something very similar, is the case for soccer, rugby, cricket leagues all over the world.  Even the ancient Japanese sport of sumo operates in the same way.

To be clear in the basest North American manner, the level your team plays in determines everything to do with money.  A soccer team in the English Premier League will make tens of millions of dollars a year more than will a team in the Championship; and the diffference is similar between the Championship teams and those in lower leagues.  There are genuine financial incentives for doing well, and significant financial penalties for doing badly.

In North America, there are financial incentives in doing better than the next team, but there are NO penalties for bad play:  you can play really badly for decade after decade and still be in the major leagues.  There is no chance of a Triple-A team being promoted, and no chance of a major league team being demoted. The entire business risk based on sporting chance has disappeared.  Every part of the system — from TV-revenue sharing to bottom-up drafts — is designed to bring equality.  It is an oddly non-free enterprise system, socialist in its implications.

2.  Always a Winner

In all of the North American major league team sports there must always be a winner in every game.  If one team cannot win in the regulation time, then you keep playing in some form or another until someone DOES win:  extra time, shoot outs, etc.

In team sports outside of North America, a draw or tie is a perfectly acceptable result for all but a tiny proportion of matches.   In fact, where a weak team is playing a stronger, their tactics may well be to aim for a draw and thus secure something rather than lose everything in a winner-take-all scenario.  This is a legitimate management option.

3.  Armour

In the contact sports — American/Canadian football, hockey — the trend in North America is to increase and improve body armour. Steroids help too.

In the contact sports — rugby, soccer — the trend in the rest of the world is to minimize equipment to free up the athlete.  Looking at a moderrn professional rugby player in his kit is to imagine that he put on the team shirt and then stood in some vacuum packing device so that the uniform is almost moulded to the player’s body.  Muscles are what you see, not padding and straps and metal.

4.  The Viewing Experience

There are a number of cosmetic differences in watching these team sports.  For example, in the rest of world, in every kind of team sport (including baseball, football, basketball and hockey) the home team is listed first, the game clock shows how much of the game has gone, and the teams keep the same uniforms wherever they play (with a few minor exceptions).  In North America, the visiting team is always listed first, the game clock always shows how much time is left to play, and the home team is always in the darker uniforms.

None of these things are, perhaps of any importance by themselves.  However, together they change how a game is watched and experienced, especially on television.  Why these particular small things are reversed is a mystery to me.  Is it psychology? marketing? chance?

5.  The International Perspective

Finally, North American major league team sports are entirely insular at the club level.  They play all of their games and competitions against one another, no outsiders are wanted.  This leads to the embarrassing situation where, say, a team in Ohio plays a team in Georgia for a “World” series or a “World” championship.

In the rest of the world, major team sports find every excuse to play different leagues, to challenge clubs from all over the globe.  These international leagues and competitions sit on top of the national leagues and become a further incentive to good play.  T o use English soccer as the example once again, the top four teams in the Premier League get to play in the following year’s Champions League against similarly successful clubs from all over Europe.  The teams that come fifth to eighth in the English Premier League qualify for the Europa Cup.  It is estimated that winning the Champions League is worth $100 million to a club, while winning the Europe Cup might be 20% of that.  Similar high value competitions exist in rugby and cricket, and for soccer in other continents.

Major league sports teams outside North America do very well, thank you very much, both in terms of money and quality without any of the protected Trust-like setup that North American leagues feel the need to erect.  They operate in a completely free market, where talent rises to its own level against peers from every corner of the globe.  They are the true capitalists, while the Major League owners are more like a Stalin-era Politbureau stamping out competition.

The Old Farts Bite

Asashoryu, perhaps the greatest sumo wrestler of all time, has been forced to retire from the sport because he doesn’t have the “dignity” to retain his position of grand champion or yokozuna.  It has nothing to do with his skill in the ring but, rather, his apparent inability to live within the rules of conduct that others, less skillful than him, have set for the position.

During the last basho, Asashoryu got drunk one evening and punched out a colleague, breaking his nose and re-arranging his lip.  They settled the matter between themselves and that should have been that.  But no.  Asashoryu’s critics — perhaps especially Japanese elders who don’t like to see foreign dominance of the ancient sport — grabbed hold of the incident as a way to beat up on the champion and force his to retire.  This was, I am certain, the only way they could guarantee that the Mongolian, who had already won 25 Emperor’s Cups, would not break the record of 32 victories, currently held by a Japanese.

In the end, although he was tearful at his farewell, this may be a release for Asashoryu.  His extraordinary career has brought him broad business interests in Mongolia.  The restrictions attached to being a yokozuna are now gone and he can expand his business career as he wants.

Something similar is happening in English football.  John Terry, captain of Chelsea and England, has been discovered to be a serial cheater on his young wife, and with the wife of another player.  Apparently John has trouble keeping it in his pants.  So, he is not a good husband or friend, fine, but how does that affect his ability to be England’s captain?  There is a media-whipped frenzy demanding his resignation for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with his footballing abilities.  How many captains of industry or leading doctors and surgeons would be out of a job if we determined these things by morality?

As the Globe & Mail columnist noted this morning:  “It is unrealistic to have a squad of players where everyone respects and likes each other. While Terry will probably be disliked and mistrusted as a person within the squad he will, nevertheless, be respected as a football player. The harsh reality is this will trump all other options or considerations for [England's' manager]“.

Update: They DID remove John Terry as Captain this morning.  Such dummies!  The Worldsports site has a good piece on why that is a bad thing to do.

My Sporting Life

This is a great time of year for an armchair jock like me.  Football (soccer) and hockey seasons have been going for a few weeks now, there have been some important cricket matches in sunnier climes, and the Fall basho began just yesterday in Koyushu.

The great sumo champion Asashoryu seems to be confirming negative views of his fading career by withdrawing from this basho because of an injury.  That news seemed to leave fellow yokozuna Hakuho with an easy path to his 9th Emperor’s Cup.  The main interest for this tournament was to see if our favourite, Ama, the smallest rikishi in the sport’s senior ranks, could gain 11 wins out of the 15 bouts and thus win promotion to ozeki.  But then came last night’s opening.   Ama won a challenging first fight against Kotoshogiku.  But Hakuho found himself floored by the popular though erratic Aminishiki.  Hometown favourite ozeki Kaio lost too, as did ozeki Kotooshu (confirming, perhaps, the belief that his Cup victory in May was a lucky blip).  Even after just one day, this basho already seems excitingly unpredictable and open for a surprise victor.

In the NHL, our beloved Canucks started the season with a series of victories. They then slumped, but now, after last night’s game, and due in no small part to three straight shutouts by goaltender Roberto Luongo, they lead the Northwest Division.   They are an exciting, attacking team with 48 goals already, and from a wide range of players.  Whatever changes GM Mike Gillis wanted in the team, coach Alain Vigneault seems to be delivering.  If only he could have been half this positive last year!

Over in England, Chelsea still march forward, leading the Premier League with an incredible +25 goal difference.  With Manchester United losing yet again today, only Liverpool stand in the way of total domination!  [Reader Alert: cliche-ridden sentence to follow:] But there’s a long way to go in the season yet,  we have to take it one game at a time, believe in ourselves and give 110%.

Ooops! Where Did All My Money Go?

It’s been said that the truly rich are somehow insulated from the financial troubles sweeping the globe these days.  However, that may not be the case for the Russian oligarchs.  It would appear that much of their wealth is speculative and thus easily damaged by the kind of stock market collapses we saw this past week.

Roman Abramovich, for example, is said to have lost $20 billion of his $23.5 billion fortune.  That leaves him $3.5 billion which sounds huge to you and me.  But for a man who recently agreed to pay $500 million for a house in the South of France, has a $350 million yacht on order, and shells out $120 million for two paintings, a bank balance of only $3.5 billion must cause some re-thinking of priorities.

So long as he continues to fund Chelsea football club, then all will be right in heaven.

Update:

According to this article, the middle-level rich in Russia are still out there spending like wild things.

Call it denial, call it bravado. Ignoring a drumbeat of dismal financial tidings, some Muscovites continue to blow their rubles and petrodollars with aplomb, spending with the trademark abandon that’s turned this oil and gas boomtown into a notorious hub of opulence and hedonism.  From the Ritz-Carlton hotel to the luxury boutiques of Red Square, consumers and salespeople alike last week shrugged off fears of a crisis. Tomorrow will take care of itself. As long as there’s cash in hand, Russians will go ahead and buy.   “Not every crisis will bring us down,” said Oleg Uvarin, an interior designer who charges wealthy clientele upward of $800 a square foot. “Through history, rich Russians have always lived lavishly. Russia will always be in the money” …

A 25-year-old model named Tatyana Zelenskaya stalked the shops in leggings and cashmere, blond hair swirling around her shoulders. “Of course I’m worried — my husband’s company has lost 60% of its value,” she said. In that case, doesn’t her husband, a coal executive, ask her to curb her spending? She threw back her head and roared a belly laugh toward the ceiling.  “He can’t say that to me,” she snorted. “Not to me.” She disappeared into Moschino.

My Sporting Life

The Fall basho passed quietly.  After the marijuana scandals of the summer, and the lifetime suspension of three Russian rikishi, I think everyone connected to sumo breathed a sigh of relief as the tournament itself went off well.  Yokozuna Hakuho has settled in as the reigning champion, easily winning his 8th Emperor’s Cup with a 14-1 record.  Our man Ama, smallest rikishi at the highest level, was second at 13-2, winning the Outstanding Performance Award and adding to his claim for promotion to ozeki.

The great champion Asashoryu seems to be winding down his career.  He lost 4 of his first 7 fights and retired from the tournament with “injuries”, the second time in a row he has pulled that stunt.  There will be pressure on him for sure to either pull up his socks or to retire.  Asashoryu has 22 Emperor’s Cups and was hoping in a few years to have taken the record from Taiho’s 32 wins.  However, Hakuho, Ama and a few up-and-comers will probably put paid to that idea.  Of course, if he comes back for a win in November, then all bets are off.

Hooray, the European football season is back!  It is a treat to watch good football each and every Saturday morning.  I am especially pleased that Chelsea are already top of the English Premier Division, a position I hope they hold until the end.

Also starting is the North American ice hockey season.  We are still in exhibition play for another couple of weeks, but the Canucks have begun what was supposed to be a “transitional” season for the team with a surprising 4-0 record.   Vigneault has been putting out some fascinating line combinations with our young prospects and a few of the talent acquired over the summer.   Today is the big pre-season cut day; a dozen or more players have to be cut from the roster.  It will be very interesting to see what the coach does with fewer options.

And finally, there is cycling.  Alberto Contador joined the list of only four other cyclists who have won all three Grand Tours: the Tour de France in 2007, the Giro d’Italia this May, and the Vuelta a Espagna this month.  It has been hard to follow the post Tour season.  My heavy load at work and no TV coverage has made it very difficult.  I love to watch cycling, and following it on text just doesn’t cut it.  Hopefully the 2009 season will be better covered by OLN and others.

Kotooshu Powers On

As an update to my previous post on the subject, I am pleased to report that Kotooshu has beaten Asashoryu and Hakuho on successive nights to sit at 12 wins and 0 losses, with 3 bouts to go.  Asashoryu has three losses and Hakuho now has two in this basho.  Both the yokozuna looked shocked at their defeats, while Kotooshu could not resist a huge beaming smile on each night (against protocol, of course).

If Kotooshu were to lose all of the final three contests (unlikely against lesser opponents), it is still possible for either of the yokozuna to take the Emperor’s Cup.  But in all practical terms, my man is now a certainty for the title.

He will be the first European to hold the Cup, and another in the long run of non-Japanese winners.  The press is already full of “blame-the-foreigners-for-the-sorry-state-of-sumo-in-Japan” stories.  Kotooshu’s win, and the failure of many prominent Japanese rikishi this time, will no doubt add to the pressures on the sport.  But I sure hope they don’t go the route of restrictive xenophobia.

Most sports have learned that the public, given the chance, will usually prefer to see the best in the world play each other at the club level, rather than to be restricted to the smaller, and perhaps less talented, national pool.  The NBA, the NHL, soccer everywhere, and cricket are prime examples of where the use of globally available talent has led to huge successes for local clubs.  Sumo should maintain its current entry policies for non-Japanese rikishi.  And the Sumo Association should turn its considerable energies to marketing the sport in Japan as the best in the world rather than as a national relic deserving of patronage.